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observance of Christmas. Garrick, in returning thanks to his friend Bunbury (the caricaturist) for some Norfolk game, at Christmas, says,—
" Few presents now to friends are sent, Few hours in merry-making spent; Old-fashioned folks there are indeed, Whose hogs and pigs at Christmas bleed; Whose honest hearts no modes refine, They send their puddings and their chine."
Even down to the present time—although the spirit has sadly abated, and been modified, and is still abating under the influence of the genius of the age, which requires work and not play—the festivities are yet kept up in many parts in a genial feeling of kindness and hospitality, not only in the dwellings of the humbler classes, who encroach upon their hard-gained earnings for the exigencies of the season, and of those of higher grade, where the luxuries mingle with the comforts of life; but also in the mansions of the opulent, and in the baronial hall, where still remain the better privileges of feudal state; and especially in the palace of our sovereign, who wisely considers the state of royalty not incompatible with the blessings of domestic enjoyment, and has shown how the dignity of a reigning queen is perfectly consistent with the exemplary performance of the duties of a wife and mother.
And surely a cheerful observance of this festival is quite allowable with the requirements for mental exertion of the present times; and hospitality and innocent revelry may be used as safety valves for our high pressure educational power,—
" Kind hearts can make December blithe as May, #
And in each morrow find a New Year's Day." |
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